Your Right to Know

GENEVA — The Vatican faced sharp questioning by a United Nations panel yesterday about whether
it had failed to abide by an international treaty against torture in its response to the sexual
abuse of children by priests.

In the hearing, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva, found himself
at odds with members of the panel, the Committee Against Torture, over the Holy See’s view that it
is responsible for applying the treaty only to the few hundred inhabitants of the Vatican City
state.

Another U.N. panel, on the rights of children, rejected that argument in February, saying that
the Vatican’s responsibility for implementing human-rights treaties extended to every person and
institution under the Roman Catholic Church’s authority. The children’s rights committee accused
the church of putting its reputation and interests ahead of those of children.

If the Committee Against Torture reaches a similar conclusion, its report could undermine one of
the main obstacles to holding the church accountable for clerical sexual abuse, victims’ advocates
say.

Felice D. Gaer, the vice chairwoman of the committee, said the convention against torture was
signed by the Holy See, which represents more than just the Vatican City state.

What the committee wanted, Gaer told the archbishop, “is simply that you show to us that, as a
party to the convention, you have a system in place to prohibit torture and ill treatment as
defined by the convention, when it is perpetrated or acquiesced to by anyone under the effective
control of the officials of the Holy See and the institutions that operate in the Vatican City
state.”